Dewayne Hendricks, Dandin Group
Are the Tools the Rules? The Future of the Digital Commons
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
Esther Dyson: Always make new mistakes.
Agenda: Follow-on to "Freedom of Ideas" (Lessig), from the two
chapters on wireless
http://www.reed.com/ click on Open Spectrum

Dewayne is a giving a great history of clueless regulation of spectrum.
And defining SW - software radios - as a way to get moore's law into
radio communications, and beyond. You can tell he's worked with Dave
Hughes on wireless before... he uses cattle grazing metaphors.
He's explaining how the tools will embody the rules (and allow more complex
rules) for managing spectrum.

I'm loving this session -- it will make a really good article somewhere --
because I hadn't realized (and I think a lot of other people haven't) how
much of a threat to the existing interests is just over the pike.
wg

This is delicious. "Wireless is the wildcard" indeed. Developing countries
are leaping ahead. And Indian reservations are developing countries with
spectrum regulatory autonomy, they have brilliantly decided.

Judi Clark asked him about mesh networks and he's telling about prnet in the
bay area. News to me.
A SRI project through the mid 80s, it's in the public record, it
can be rediscovered, and he's going fast enough that I can only make notes
of things to google later.

Possibly coherent notes:
Dewayne Hendricks, Dandin Group
Are the Tools the Rules? The Future of the Digital Commons
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
Esther Dyson: Always make new mistakes.
Agenda here: Follow-on to "Freedom of Ideas" (Lessig), from the two
chapters on wireless
(From a quick search, these look relevant:
http://www.dandin.com/pdf/Pacificon.pdf Software-Defined Radios talk
at Pacificon 2000
http://www.tapr.org/tapr/pdf/dcc98.vision.pdf A New Vision for the
Amateur Radio Service
there may be more added to my weblog at
http://XRayNet.editthispage.com/ as I find 'em)
To have a commons, you need to have a communications layer that isn't
controlled.
In 2000, Kennard (FCC) worried that demand for spectrum was on pace to
outstrip supply
Establish as a goal that spectrum be treated as a commmodity that
flows fluidly in a market.
Powell now heads FCC, says "Our nation's approach to spectrum
allocation is seriously flawed." Proposes deregulating everything, plan
nothing.
Spread Spectrum
NOI in 1981
"spectrum overlay" -- DC to light, with no power lines -- as part of
spectrum management toolkit. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 1984. R&O
in 1985.
Unlicensed Radio:
FCC Part 15 in 1985, w/in 20 years we now have WLAN and WMAN products,
Data-PCS at 1.9GHz (1994) Data-PCS at 2.9GHz (1996), U-NII Band (1997)
(includes 802.11a -- 802.11b is in 2.4GHz band). Noone has any idea
how many devices are operating in these bands.
These approaches date from a time when radios were simple and dumb
devices: 20 years before Claude Shannon's information theory work, so
the Commission is really looking at spectrum from a Nineteenth=century,
telegraphy model, rooted in treating spectrum as property (as have to
do with telegraph lines).
That requires treating spectrum as a scarce resource.
Apple asked for 50MHz of Spectrum, got 20 for what became U-NII. (?)
Sun had wanted 400MHz, arguing customers would really want to do
womething with it. That was politically impossible, so Sun left the
game.
Software radio: get Moore's Law into telecom space. Antenna connected
directly to A-D/D-A converter. Would be flexible, reduced obsolescence,
enhance experimentation, bring together analog and digital world.
Can deal with a large swath of info at a time. Reprogrammable,
multiband/multimode. Goes where there's spectrum to be used.
Smart radios: can dynamically look at environment around it, and use
spectrum appropriately.
Cognitive radios: As radios embed increasingly complex and realistic
models of their environments, users, and networks, they begin to
approach what an outside observer might call rational or common-sense
beahavior.
DW worked on a Bill of Rights for cognitive radios. [This "cognitive
radio" idea is rich!]
Regulatory effects of a Cognitive Radio
o frequency channels don't matter
o capacity, architecture, and scaling do matter, (have to anticipate
unfair use of a common resource)
o spectrum should not be treated as a scarce resource
o control not only the transmitter but also the receiver
Existing license holders are not pleased.
Program "Rules of the Road" for cognitive radios, like
Keep away from the big bullies (avoid strong signals)
Wireless bandwidth trends:
o BW prices falling because of 802.11 standards
o Cost for 45 Mbps will go from $12k/link today to $2k in one year,
approach $500 link in two years
o Facilitates mobility, which wires can't do.
Regulatory approach: evolve FCC and Congressional strategy; start with
simple exceptions (power and EIRP, Frequency); New Technologies (Reas
Spread Spectrum, UWB); Explore use of SDR's
Working outside US. WOrking in Indian Country, because sovereign
immunity allows other possibilities. And an existence proof beats any
other alternative.
Wired approaches are blocked (assym DSL, controlled by telco),
wireless is the wildcard and innovation can flourish
The Internet is about edge-to-edge transparency.
Don't get wedded to 802.11, because already there are better
technologies.

Still online. EFF on status of Napster & ilk -- the P2P copyright cases.
Followed by someone from http://www.centerspan.com/ -- an interesting
company who seems to want to be a wholesale provider of a for-pay P2P
platform to provide to the music/movie "content" providers.

I liked <amicus>'s comment comparing the service to the library that wants
to move so tells arll the patrons to check out as many books as possible and
bring them back to the new bldg. so, he sez, don't buy the building, just
build a database and have the users deliver the books to each other and list
on nasdaq!
wg

Lots of interesting aspects to the model but they are not allowing peer
publishing. Hmm. May be room for someone to take the platform for use in
user-publishing with smaller publishers like you & me.
Now we're on to service provider liablity and the new Hollings bill.
Verizon speaker.

I'm five feet from Bruce, and was just coming to post the same sort of
thought! I feel like I'm undergoing one of those brain surgeries where they
have to keep you awake. each time I see her pull out a knife or screwdriver,
I cringe just a bit. Y'know, like, "Ack! She's taking an access point off
the stand. What's that going to *do to me*?"

Re the wireless stuff, a guy with a small state agency here in Texas
was telling me today about his visit to Electra, Texas ("Wichita
County's best-kept secret") in north Texas.
http://www.electratexas.org/
He discovered that they had substantial wireless connectivity set up
using 802.11, and "didn't know what they had." Rural Texas is a great
place t'do wireless, because it's so flat. I expect we'll see a
proliferation of wireless networks here, and soon.

The Verizon rep says they are spammed with automated notice & takedown
requests under the DMCA and that they have been approached by a company
with an autoresponder product!
People laughed when she said "we rely on the no-monitoring provision of
the DMC" No kidding. What a burden that would be.

> And now the Brandeis awards, for the champions of privacy:
>
> State Senator Jackie Speier for standing up to the banks with a privacy bill
> currently in the works in California.
I guess that she has had a major change of heart, then. For those of
us in California who found we had to give our SSN's for driver's licenses
etc. have Jackie Speier to thank for it all --- she was the one who pushed
through the Deadbeat Dad's legislation requiring SSN's... Standing
up for privacy? She destroyed our privacy years ago!!!!!!!!